Location: Alabama, then Wyoming, then Idaho and now staying with Kharon on Styx houseboat

Age: 52

Posts: 1,437

Perhaps Flyingfiend can paint a clearer picture of this robust question posed by up-into-the-air? He seems to have an uncanny snese of understanding of everything legal and regulatory?

And let me tell you a little secret. Requests under FOI are considered a game at Fort Fumble. They purposely release tiny increments of information, just a nibble, slowly, only a little bit at a time when being pushed. This holds up any real relevant information from getting into the mainstream for years!
The organisation requesting the FOI then has to reapply, seek out more information, to yet again only be handed a small fraction of what they have requested. By the time the bloodhounds who are making the FOI requests get everything they are looking for another 50 years of aviation history has flown by!
Oh those naughty CASA boys, they know the game very well indeed.

FOI stands for Fending Off Individuals in the LSD (erk!) at the sewerage farm/fort fumble /whatever. eg CYA Inc.

Heres a couple of samples of bureaucrap speak for stuff they dont want you to see its ” an internal working document”….
or “legal professional privelege”.
Do your own homework and read up on that…and you can clearly see CASA is pissing in its own pocket in self protection mode.

There aint no legal “professional”privelege when one (miss-) “manager” in Compliance section of the LSD asks another a person in the LSD for an opinion about some reg issue. And they’re so fcuked up about the regs they cant even get that straight! Or abide by their own freaking manual while they’re at it. What a sh*t show !!

Bit of a conflict of interest for the FOI person NOT to be independent of all the other ar$e coverers, dont you think ??

But thats the self servants for you. Oztrailya..land of failed bureaucracies, wih CASA leading from the front for once.

From personal experience, you can count the ATSB in with the FOI tactic of f….ing over the applicant.

Not to mention the tactic of deferring to the TSI Act! Funny how 2 of 3 government agencies with the word ‘safety’ in their name have the dodgiest FOI departments…the catch words of ‘transparency’ and ‘model litigants’ with this lot should be changed to ‘invisibility’ and ‘bullies’!

(Aside : the Chump is always flattered about now that a High Ranking Legal Officer has taken a personal interest in the request and may be forgiven for assuming that all is well).

HRLO – “Yes sport, of course you can, just give me a moment or two to locate it, here fill out this form”.

Chump – “Righty O, thanks”.

HRLO – “Look mate, it’s going to take a while, I’ll let you know when it’s ready”.
(This goes on for while then at the point where patience and politeness is almost exhausted by requests for extensions, the letter finally arrives).

HRLO – “Well, all good to go now – please pay 23 gazzillion dollars and you can take it away”.

IC – “You have no complaint, they followed due process, obtained your permission to extend the time line; and, they have freely offered you the paperwork, their administrative fees are kosher – what’s your point ?. “Flick Off Idiot”.

That folks is just part of the fun of the Goon Show and Yes, it’s nearly all bollocks.

I recently submitted a request to the Civil Aviation and Safety Authority (CASA) requesting documents relating to public complaints received in the preceding 18 months. Given the unprecedented safety issues with both Tiger Airways and Qantas during this time, I was quite surprised when I received official correspondence stating that no such documents existed.

This led me to two possible conclusions. Firstly, that there had been no complaints made to CASA during this time or secondly, that CASA had failed to meet their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. I found the former unlikely, and the latter unsettling.

Intrigued, I contacted the media department for clarification. I received a prompt response from the Manager Corporate Communications, Peter Gibson. It was a brief, albeit, important lesson in the power of bureaucratic process.

“It (a 24-hour hotline) is for people in the aviation industry to report problems, issues, safety concerns etc. As such, people don’t ‘complain’ about safety issues, they report them,” he said.

It was hard not to feel frustrated and exacerbated by the response. It was clear that the intention of my request was to receive documents pertaining to any public notifications sent to CASA that highlighted aircraft safety issues. CASA did not make any attempt to clarify my request or assist me to obtain the documents I was seeking. This flies in the face of recent changes to the FOI laws.

Certainly it seems there are non-aviation people who see the problem as well.

“Gibbo”- “Chemical Ali”, the same person really, or went to the same school as Herr Goebbles. Features on previous dictionary pages as gobbledgook which sums up obscure phraseology and pretentious information given gratituously, or in the case of CAA for a fee, to cover the black marker pens to supply you with a useless document.

The direction from the Information Commissioner resulted in 200 pages of information that should have been given to you without an issue.

I note that this has now showing at 30th April 2012, not May 2013 when you got the material, albeit missing 3 pages [from the casa FOI log], which were not reported seperately, but inserted into the original log document.

A very nice win for Mr Urqhart, slowly slowly catch the monkey.
Fort Fumble are working overtime to keep the reaper from their door at the moment, lots of action taking place from behind the scenes in the form of FOI requests, private litigation against them, Senate investigations and so forth.
The best bit is that Fort Fumble are constantly trying to second guess what the public has in its armoury, and I can assure you the armoury is growing

I am still of the opinion that if the Senators can’t make traction by years end, then a petition to the UN for intervention and action should be considered.
Here is a link to an interesting public movement taking place as we speak. I post this as an example that there are other means and ways of pushing these matters further if the government chooses to look the other way.

The link below gives the CASA’s FOI figures (among many others) reported to the AG’s office. Interestingly, the latest report that comes up is 09/10. It’s about this time the 12/13 report should almost be on the A.G’s desk. Almost 3 years of figures not available. That’s almost a term in office. If you know who is submitting FOI’s you should compare that with what is reported in the near future. I do wonder if all FOI request’s do get reported?

Interesting figures. For example the ATO ranks high, but considering that it pisses off around 18 million tax payers annually plus it has thousands of staff, the amount of requests are low. Then you have Fort Fumble, with a mere 600 staff and I believe there is around 100 000 punters directly/indirectly associated with the aviation industry, and only a relatively smaller amount who have to deal with the regulator directly, those figures are quite high.
Interesting indeed, Clarise. I believe I can still hear the Skulls lambs crying…